The wealth of information gleaned from reading research both past and present needs to be applied to a practical eclectic reading methodology. First, an emergent instruction model needs to be created that takes into account the immediate interests and needs of the learner. This model should recognize that learning is a transaction, with the learner sharing in the transaction in a way that direct instruction does not. Second, the eclectic approach of the future must respect the centrality of the teacher. It cannot prescribe or script what they are to do and say. Despite the differences in approaches, many effective instructors teach in balanced, individualistic ways and represent the central figure in a child's education--the constant, stable adult on whom learning depends. Third, educators need to re-think children's interests. The possibilities for using realia and technology to initiate, not just reflect, interests in school are enormous, not to be confined to what a child has seen on TV or in the neighborhood. Fourth, aesthetic response to literature reading instruction needs to be considered, otherwise reading instruction will produce a condition called aliteracy: an aliterate is a person who can read but who does not choose to do so. Finally, more attention needs to be devoted to the questions of what is functional reading for a child and how educators can increase what a child does with functional reading. (Six quotes are included.) (KEH)